


The Spit Light

by halfhardtorock



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, M/M, general cheesiness, lighthouse keepers, mildly hurt/comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-23
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-05 20:28:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4193781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfhardtorock/pseuds/halfhardtorock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Spit Light is the most forgettable lighthouse on Montseag, situated within sighting distance of her grandmother, The Great Headlight on the west harbor. The Spit is a rocky, curled finger of land in the southwest where no boat but one that’s frightfully, impossibly lost would stray. And even those unlucky seafarers would only find use of the Spit Light as a range light for the Great Head, to slip back around the curl of rock and toward safer waters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Spit Light

**Author's Note:**

> Remember when I started writing this epic Arthur/Eames lighthouse keepers fic 1000000 years ago? lol. Done.
> 
> eta: oh also I know shite about lighthouses. Or boats. Or british people.
> 
> wtfzurtopic on tumblr

The year Eames runs the lighthouse, he grows a beard. Red-gold, autumnal locks that feel patrician when he strokes them but look much less noble and leonine when he peers at his face in the glass above the sink. The wild grizzle goes well with the endless damp, with navy and grey wool and his long underwear. He takes to wearing a watch cap, even to bed where he can see his breath steam. Whenever he takes it off, his hair is a shade darker with sweat and slick to his head.

There is no place to sleep in a lighthouse. There's nothing inside but the inner-shell spiral of clacking metal stairs and a small stand beside the gearbox to brace against as the lamp turns and blinks above. He sleeps in the white-washed stone cottage beside the light, a one room, miserably drafty little place that smells like dry plaster and cold seaweed. 

The Spit Light is the most forgettable lighthouse on Montseag, situated within sighting distance of her grandmother, The Great Headlight on the west harbor. The Spit is a rocky, curled finger of land in the southwest where no boat but one that’s frightfully, impossibly lost would stray. And even those unlucky seafarers would only find use of the Spit Light as a range light for the Great Head, to slip back around the curl of rock and toward safer waters. 

Manning the Spit Light is perhaps the most undesirable job on the island (besides cleaning lobster traps), but he still grows his beard and wears his heavy wool pants and learns to smoke a fragrant pipe and whittle little misshapen people from drift wood.

 

 

He's nodding off in his chair at the table, tea cold in his cup when there's a loud _THWACK_ at the side of the cottage that jerks him awake with a snort. He knocks his chair on its side when he lurches up, mumbling "Whatsit?"

Outside his door is a man with a hammer, a man in neat-as-a-pin microfiber fleece, Harvard red, zipped up to his sharp little chin. The man seems surprised to see him, if the way he wavers, with his hammer half-poised in the air is any tell.

"What are you doing?" Eames wonders, because there is a strange man in his yard, hammering a notice to the side of his cottage.

Eames surveys the notice for a moment, silent. 

"I assume you've heard--" the man says. 

**-DECOMMISSIONED-**

**THE ISLAND OF MONTSEAG, IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE MAINE STATE GSA --**

"What?!" Eames sputters, and rips the thick notice down with chapped hands.

"Hey!" the man says. 

Eames tears the notice in half, even as his brain works wildly to catch up. 

**DECOMMISSIONED**

**DECOMMISSIONED**??!

"Hey, that's my...that's my--! I'm required by law to display that!" the man in his red fleece jacket shouts as Eames rips it apart. 

"You can't decommission my bloody lighthouse!" Eames barks and there are sharp, strong fingers suddenly fighting his hands as he tries to throw the torn-up notice into the wind. 

"That was state property!" the man shouts as the pieces scatter into the blue sea grass.

They stand there watching as they pick up air and disappear like white birds down the cliff. Afterwards, Eames almost feels remorseful but then the man is lifting his hammer with a look of white-lipped fury on his face "Listen, Ahab--" he starts, but Eames holds his hands up in mock-defense and steps back.

The man pauses, looks at where Eames is eyeing his fisted hammer. He rolls his eyes. "I'm not going to hit you."

Eames keeps his hands up and the man snorts and drops his arm loose, says "I'm just the messenger."

"How can they decommission my lamp? If anything else, The Great Head needs a range light--" and the man lifts his hammer suddenly, spooking Eames, and points island-ward, right at EMC communications tower, a grey skeletal eyesore breaking the tree line.

"They added a continuous red below the white strobe," he says, and shrugs at Eames' distaste. 

"A bloody communications tower is going to replace my lighthouse?" He can't believe it. He runs his hands through his hair, realizing suddenly that he's not wearing his watch cap, and that his hair is a mussed, oily thatch. 

He frowns. 

"I'll have to get another sign," the man says like it's a wretched business, and then shoots Eames an annoyed look.

It makes Eames feel hot-headed again, and he snaps back "Why don't you hold off, love, until I can consult the Heritage Foundation on this."

"Where do you think _I'm_ from?" the man returns just as bitchily. 

Eames sags with a hard exhale, betrayed. "No."

"They want to turn the rock into a tidepool museum," the man swings his hammer as he walks, looks back over his shoulder at Eames. 

Eames glares at him.

He follows the man all the way to where his Saab is parked at the end of the crushed shell drive. 

"I'm coming back with a new sign!" the man calls from his car. "If you tear it up, I'll have you arrested!"

Eames gives him a two-fingered salute and gets shell sprayed in his face when the car breaks away.

 

 

What follows is the most annoying cat and mouse game Eames has ever had the misfortune to play. 

He's just getting in his bath when he hears the determined _clack-clack-clack_ of a hammer. He near drops his paperback right in the soapy water. With a curse, he grabs his dirty pants and drags them back on.

He throws the door open and the little bastard steps back rapidly, holding his hammer.

He stops retreating and raises a mocking brow at Eames when he gets a good look at him. And to be fair, Eames probably isn't very menacing, standing there with most of his kit off, hair a greasy mess, beard untrimmed.

Eames tears down the notice, feeling a savage joy at the sound the man makes, that little scoff of disbelief.

Then he smirks as he rips it cleanly in half.

The man rolls his eyes. 

"I'm not done," he says with bared teeth.

"We'll see," Eames says, and slams his door. 

He gives a groan when he climbs into his bath and finds that it's gone tepid.

 

 

He thinks he's in the clear when every morning he goes out and finds his door free of blasphemous notices. But then that night, the wind gets her fingers on one of his clean shirts and takes it. He usually hangs them out the window by their sleeve, caught between the sill and sash, because they dry in minutes in the galloping, rollicking wind. Sometimes things get stolen away and he has to run for them. Tonight, he sees his shirt floating over the grass before it disappears around the side of the light.

He runs, catches it before it can be taken out to sea and that's when he sees it. On the wrong side of his lighthouse. A _fucking_ DECOMMISSIONED notice.

He rips it down with an angry shout.

 

 

The next time he sees the man coming. He was wandering along the wood line, enjoying the warm day and looking lazily for blackberry bushes.

The sound of a car on the lane tips him off. He ducks down, hidden.

He hisses when he sees the familiar Saab. And stays hidden while the man gets out and starts trudging down towards his light, hammer in the loop of his Carhartts, notice in hand.

He's well out of sight when Eames climbs out and peeks in the car. 

_Ah_.

The little bastard.

The wind does her job. Beautifully. When they've all been licked out of his hand, he gets in the car and lays on the horn.

The man comes _tearing_ up the shell drive like a man possessed.

Eames can't help laughing, watching him run. The way his face is all hectic with color.

It's even funnier when the man notices that it's snowing large, white cards all over the field and down into the cliffs. He almost trips, ends up skidding to a stop with a scandalized look on his face.

"You fucking asshole!" The man's voice cracks in his anger, and he actually pulls his hammer out.

Eames rolls out of the car and away, puts up his hands in defense.

It just seems to make the man angrier. His face gets all pinched and he shakes the hammer before he tosses it impotently on the ground. 

So instead of braining Eames, he gets into some kind of _stance_ and says "You're going to pay for those. Every single one of them is coming out of your paycheck, do you hear me?!"

And then he puts the back of his hand to his head like he has a fever, turns around to watch his bloody notices blow away.

Eames stands up to watch them too.

"How many was that?" Eames wonders.

" _50_ ," the man growls, and shoots him a furious look.

Eames has to hand it to him. "Well, you _are_ determined," he says. 

"Yes, I am," the man grabs his hammer again and walks stiffly back to his car.

The next week, Eames gets a $250 fine from the CITY OF MONTSEAG for littering.

 

 

Eames looks out the window, waves.

The man doesn't wave back, but he slows his pace, like he's got all the time in the world to do his work.

Eames meets him outside. says "Bit clever, with the littering fine."

The man shrugs, but looks like he might smile if Eames pushed it. "I reported the damaged property. You should be seeing a dock in your pay by next month."

"Mmm," Eames murmurs in agreement.

The man doesn't even bother pulling his hammer. He just stops. Then he looks at Eames and says "Should I bother?"

"No," Eames says gently, trying to let him down easy.

The man sighs, passes the notice to him.

Eames enjoys tearing it in half, and then in fourths. 

"That's 51," the man murmurs and walks back to his car.

 

 

"Wait, wait! I'm not done!" Eames says, the next time the man shows up.

The man sits down on the rock to watch, the DECOMMISSIONED notice on his knee.

"Do you have a permit for that?" he calls once. Eames snorts. If anything, the guy is a fucking comedian. 

He drags a branch past, huffs "Nice color on you, Harvard red."

The guy looks down at his jacket, bewildered. And then he says "It's not...it's _Nautical_ red."

Eames smiles to him, then says "woah," and steps back as his fire roars to life.

"All right," he says, cleaning off his hands. 

The man gives him a look. A look that says _is this necessary_? 

So Eames says " _Yes_ , now be a good lad and hand it over."

The man gives him the notice and stands up, hands on his hips and watches Eames throw the notice on the bonfire.

They both watch as the flames eat the notice out from the center, curling the thick white paper into char. 

"I'm going to spit-fire some fish after, if you want to stay," Eames offers.

The man just sighs and says "That was 52," and walks off slowly, sometimes pausing to look out at the water and back at the billowing smoke.

A week later, Eames gets a $75 fine for starting a fire on state property without a permit.

"Bastard," he mutters to himself, almost fond.

 

 

There are two pubs on the island, a big, stately old house on Chase Street that everyone just calls "Guv'nors", a nice enough place off-season, but a damned tourist trap in the summer. The other pub is a small shit-hole set between Montseag House of Pizza and a Fed-Ex store. _Cormorants_ is a dive, but if you come after five, you miss the lobstermen, who you do not want to drink with unless you fancy waking up the next morning, puking off the side of a moving pickup truck bed on Brant's Beach. Which is how Eames remembered it.

Yusuf is sitting at the bar, watching baseball on the telly.

Eames sits down heavily beside him. "Some scrawny bloke from the Heritage Foundation is trying to decommission my lamp," 

Yusuf chokes on his beer, then looks at Eames like he doesn't believe him. "What?" he asks.

"I've tried to dodge him, but he's fucking stubborn," Eames says, waving a hand for the bartender. He slumps forward. "Shite. He's probably there right now, posting his bloody notice."

"Can he do that?" Yusuf wonders and Eames points out the bourbon.

"Which one?" the bartender asks, stepping aside.

"Whichever--" Eames says miserably. "And yes, he can do that. They put a red light up on the EMC tower. Apparently, my beloved lamp is obsolete."

Yusuf doesn't seem impressed, bless him. 

"What will you do?" Yusuf asks after a while.

"God knows. Fight it? Then find something else to do for a bit." He drinks his well bourbon and sighs.

"I'd invite you on, but I've got three USM students aboard in a week for internships," Yusuf says apologetically.

"It's all right," Eames tells him, smiling sadly. 

Yusuf stops drinking, frowns. "What bloke from the Heritage Foundation?"

Eames snorts. "Some stiff bastard in a red fleece jacket. We haven't exactly exchanged names."

"Young lad?" Yusuf asks.

"Yeah. About my age, probably."

Yusuf nods, drinks. "Arthur Hoffmann."

Eames stares at him. 

"I've met him a few times. He was at Windjammer Days this summer, working the Foundation table--"

"Arthur Hoffman," Eames interrupts.

"--yeah. He's not a bad sort. A bit stuffy--"

" _Arthur Hoffmann_ ," Eames says louder, "Arthur Hoffmann of _The Great Head_?!"

Yusuf smiles sheepishly. "Uh. Yes."

"That _little_ shit!" Eames bellows.

 

 

He's completely arseholed, which is why he doesn't let Yusuf beg him home. Nor does he let a chain link fence deter him when it appears in his way up from the beach. He clings onto the fence for a minute, jaw tight and then scrambles up and over the side, flipping onto his back.

"Unnnn," he moans to himself and lays there, looking in pain at the fog break, then the spray of stars across the sky. 

After a while, he gets himself up again and hunkers along the side of the rock wall until he reaches his destination.

Up close, the Great Headlight is nose-bleedingly massive, cork-screwed with black and white paint all the way up. Her lamp orbs like a ghost moon, sending a beam of light across the sky, cutting the fog. Eames loses his breath, looking up at her.

Then he sterns his jaw, reaches into his shopping bag. 

There's a small, faint light in an upstairs window of the keeper's house, and he fumbles with the carton wondering if Arthur Hoffmann is awake up there, reading in bed. He can picture it, the neat, spare little room, the man in prudish, buttoned up flannel pajamas. He grins to himself and throws the first. The egg arcs wildly and hits the wall with a soft, appealing _splat_.

He's thrown most of the first dozen by the time one _thonks_ on the front door. And then a new light goes on downstairs.

He pauses, waits for it.

The front door swings open, the yard light comes on and someone shouts "What the hell--?" as Eames lobs one right in.

Arthur Hoffmann stumbles out, spluttering, an egg on his head. 

They're silent for a moment, taking each other in.

"Are you fucking serious?" Arthur asks, and Eames is delighted to see that he _is_ wearing pajamas. "Hey asshole, if you're here because of my article in _Shalom Boston_ , I'll have you know that this definitely counts as a fucking hate crime."

"No! What? No!" Eames says, horrified. "... _bloody hell_."

Arthur owls an eye at him. "Wait, it's you. What the fuck are you doing here?"

Eames points an accusatory finger at him. "You're Arthur Hoffman, the goddamn Great Head keeper."

Arthur frowns. "So?"

" _So_? You keep showing up at _my_ lamp all cavalier--"

"By legal obligation to the city of Montseag--" Arthur argues.

"--and hammering _decommissioned_ notices on my door. I thought you were just a bloody suit from the mainland or something, but you're not. You're Arthur Hoffmann! You should know better! How did you think a man, another _keeper_ , would feel about having his fucking lamp decommissioned out from under him?"

Arthur looks uncomfortable, but just combs the egg from his hair and offers "Look. I didn't. It's not personal. It...it had to be done. "

"Yeah, well. Good on you. Doing your job." He takes a fresh egg out of his bag and says "Nice one!" and lobs it at the window.

It splatters everywhere, a wet little firework, and Arthur says "Fuck it, I'm calling the cops," and disappears back inside.

Eames throws three more before he tosses the bag aside and runs for it.

 

 

Of course, the night he's out drunk and causing property damage, his lamp has a crisis.

He can't see her light. He's gotten used to being able to spot her, even from places on the island where her light is so faint an untrained eye would mistake her for light pollution from the power station. It chills him now that he can't see her, makes his breath shallow. He's running flat out by the time he makes the field and realizes that though she's still lit like he left her, she's not rotating, just skewed to the east, pointing out to sea.

"Ah, motherfucking hell," he curses, digging through his tools, grabbing his flashlight.

He spends most of his evening sobering up in the cold and trying to replace one of the metal dowels.

He never calls her names. But sometimes he curses his wrench, the damp, the poor, low battery beam from his flashlight. This bloody island and all the bastards trying to eke out a miserable living on her grim rock.

She starts turning again with a low rumble. 

He climbs out of her feeling grey and sluggish. He beats it back to his cottage, tosses himself into bed with his shoes on.

 

 

He wakes up with a splitting headache and his hands still stinking faintly of dried egg whites, pungent and raw and metallic. He washes, then douses his face in the sink. 

After, he dries off and fumbles around in the cabinet for some paracetamol. 

He ends up snoozing on the rock most of the day, a cup of tea going cool and then sun-hot at his knee.

 

 

He's about to make an early dinner when he sees the lean, Nautical red figure of Arthur Hoffmann walking up the drive. 

He snorts, tries to close him out and ignore his knocking, but Arthur just peers in the kitchen window where Eames' washing off a courgette in the sink and says " _Come on_."

Eames lets him in with a gruff "Leave it outside," when Arthur tries to carry in a new DECOMMISSIONED sign.

He leans against the counter while Arthur looks around. The man's got a little, critical frown on his face, like there's something wrong with Eames' cottage. It puts his hackles up.

So he does the only thing he knows how when he has unbearable company that won't leave.

"Cup of tea, then?"

Arthur declines at first and then sits down at the table and says a flat "Fine."

"Oh, don't let me twist your arm," Eames grumbles, but heats the water and brings out his tin. He makes a proper cup, which takes a good ten minutes. Which ends up being a good ten minutes of stony silence.

When he sets the tea before him, Arthur looks at it, then takes a careful (dainty) sip and makes a little, irritable noise.

"Not to your liking?" Eames says, letting his accent sound brusque and rough.

"No, it's fine," Arthur snaps. And then the man actually puts his face into his hand for a second and grimaces.

"Right." Eames sits across from him, waiting, drinking.

"Look. I...I came here to..." Arthur moves his hand, runs it through his hair and says "...to apologize."

It's not what Eames was expecting. He dribbles a little tea when he laughs in disbelief.

Arthur's look is withering. 

"I was just surprised, mate. But go on," Eames says, grinning.

"You were right. It was...callous of me. I assumed someone had contacted you, but I didn't check, and that's on me. While I don't... _condone_ vandalism, I get why you did it," Arthur says, and takes another diplomatic sip of tea.

"Vandalism?" Eames wonders.

"You egged my lighthouse," Arthur says dryly.

"Ah, right," Eames says. "Not my finest hour."

"Anyway. The...the sign has to go up. I'm required by law to display it--" 

Eames deflates.

"But. Look. I'm hosting a dinner for some of my colleagues in the Heritage Foundation on Sunday and if you want to come and state your case for your lighthouse, that can be arranged."

Eames looks up at him, startled. 

Arthur looks into his tea cup, uncomfortable.

"Are you fucking with me?" Eames asks.

Arthur frowns. "No. I just. I get it. It's shit. Your lamp might not be the most important on the island, but it's one of the first three and...and maybe that should be considered. Maybe I should have considered it myself, before coming out here."

"Arthur," Eames says, grinning. Cheered. 

"Stop," Arthur says.

" _Arthur Hoffmann_ \--"

"Stop," Arthur says, voice flatter.

"What a truly noble thing--"

Arthur stands up abruptly, scoffing, and walks out.

Eames trails him out, blowing into his mug in hand, still grinning. He stands back, assessing as Arthur shakily hammers the notice on the door. 

When he's done, he points him hammer at Eames, making the man jump back. 

"And Jesus, clean yourself up. No one's going to listen to a word you say if you look like a vagrant," Arthur says harshly.

"Will do." Eames smiles brighter. Arthur slips his hammer back into the loop on his carhartts and keeps shooting grieved looks over his shoulder while Eames walks him all the way up to his car. 

"See you Sunday," Eames says. "I'm Eames, by the way!"

Arthur nods his sharp chin and goes to drive away, but suddenly brakes, leans out and shouts "I know your name. I asked the sheriff who the dipshit bearded pirate was out on Spit Rock when I filed a police report on your vandalism!"

"Well done," Eames says. 

"And come over at 4 so I can hear your arguments before hand. I'm not looking like an asshole in my own home!"

"Sure thing, love!" Eames calls and waves.

 

 

He meets up with Yusuf at _Cormorants_ , considerably sober and ready to get pissed all over again. 

Yusuf is waiting with Eames' very favorite seafarer.

"First Mate Ariadne," Eames says, pecking her on the cheek.

"She's a botswain," Yusuf reminds him. Again.

"It's ok," Ariadne smiles, face all sunny and freckly and tan. 

Eames settles down and orders a Guinness on tap. 

"I heard about your lighthouse. That's really sad, Eames," she says and touches his shoulder.

"Well it's not over yet. I've got an audience with some local wigs on Sunday," he tells them.

Yusuf raises a brow. 

"Arthur Hoffmann has invited me to dinner with his Montseag Heritage Foundation cronies," he explains. And then offers "they're the ones who get the last call on decommissioning things, apparently," to Ariadne.

"Ah," Yusuf says. "And how did you earn such a felicitous invitation?"

Eames sips his beer, smiles. "I vandalized Arthur's lighthouse the other night."

Yusuf's face is priceless. Ariadne laughs in disbelief. "What?"

"Listen. Lets get _devastatingly_ drunk and then go back to mine and shave my beard _right_ off," Eames says, grinning. 

"Ohhkay," Ariadne laughs, and leans over the bar to order another round.

 

 

He takes the stairs two at a time, rushing up to the lamp. He can hear Ariadne's sneakered feet behind him, clacking on the metal, and she hiccups a laugh when she trips a little, slows.

"Be careful!" he bellows down at her.

"Should we be doing this drunk?" she calls.

"There's no better way, Ariadne!" he shouts back ardently. He loves his bloody lighthouse. He loves her leaky bricks, her rusty spiral stairwell, her ridiculously complex and prehistoric gearbox. 

He's making his checks propped up against the box, tongue at the corner of his mouth, ticking things off in his notebook when Ariadne finally joins him. 

"Oh my Christ, I am going to barf," she tells him, breathing heavily.

"Get your sea legs, Ariadne!" he shouts, and he's not just drunk. He's _happy_. This makes him happy. 

"Running up spiral staircases is such a dumb person's drunk activity," she complains, holding her stomach.

He folds up his notebook, wedges it back beside the gearbox and closes everything up. Then he turns to her and says "We're done, dear lady! Come, my shaver awaits!"

She makes hoarking sounds as he takes her hand and rushes her back down the stairs.

 

 

The naked bulb above his sink is bleary. Ariadne bites her lip and looks at the shaver. 

"This is such an incredibly bad idea," Yusuf muses, watching from the bed with a beer in hand.

"Look, lets. Lets trim it up first with scissors. This thing is a jungle," Ariadne plays with his beard, fisting it and releasing. Eames reaches into his medicine cabinet, brings out some little nostril hair scissors.

"This is all you have?" she asks, skeptical.

"Yep," he says, seating himself on the chair he's dragged in. He waits, looking at himself in the mirror.

"You don't even have any like, shears? Outdoor scissors?"

"Outdoor scissors?" he asks, eyebrows up. "Is that an American thing?"

"Just use those," Yusuf presses her on.

She sighs, tries petting his beard down and into place before she begins.

"It's gotten beastly, hasn't it?" Eames smiles at himself, retroactively embarrassed. 

"It's dignified, whatever," Ariadne teases, and begins cutting off the wiry, auburn hairs.

 

 

He wakes up with a snort, then immediately feels his face, his bare upper lip. 

It's odd, like his jaw is smaller, weaker. 

The mirror shows him, naked skin and uncertain eyes. He stares at himself for a moment, remembering when Ariadne had finished last night, stood back stunned and said "How were you hiding that under there this whole time?"

He pours a glass of water, goes out to sit on the rock.

 

 

By midday, he bikes to the village without a jacket, it's so warm. He gets a nice plate of scotch eggs and salt cod at the Rocktide Inn for lunch and then walks his bike up to the square where Thistle's Bookstore is. He tucks it between a rose bush and the porch side, goes inside.

Thistle's has some of the best historical books on Montseag, a whole, airy room of them with a big, sunny window at the back. He peers around the shelves, grabbing what he can. There's a small, blue-cloth covered chap-book called _The Spit Light_ that he finds tucked between some _Montseag Days_ yearbooks. He plucks it out, smiles and brushes it off with his hands.

With a good pile of research, he sits down at the stoop in the window to read.

He's paging lazily through some old photos when he glances up to see Arthur there. Arthur walking into the sunlit room.

Eames' surprised enough to clam up and just stare.

For a moment, he assumes he's being pointedly ignored. It puts his hackles up. But then he notices that Arthur's face is placid, unconcerned. Distracted. 

Clearly, _wonderfully_ , Arthur doesn't recognize him.

Eames sprawls back and watches him then, enjoying it. Feasting on the way Arthur juts his hip when he's considering a book, the way he stacks them up in the sharp crook of his elbow.

It's only when Arthur pauses, seems suddenly aware that he has an audience that Eames gets up and walks over.

He stands at the row of books, pretending to browse. After a moment, Arthur finally turns to look at him, just a glance. There's something on his face, something... _curious_.

"Hey you," Eames flirts softly.

Arthur hesitates, goes to says "H-hi...?" but then pauses, stares at him, struck.

"Ah. You're onto me," Eames chuckles to himself.

Arthur splutters. Arthur turns away. Arthur looks _back_ with widening eyes.

"Your face? Oh. It is a great face right now," Eames says.

Arthur schools his reaction, locks it down with a strained grimace and then says "You just...look--" 

"What?" Eames asks, breathlessly curious.

"--different," he finishes lamely.

"Yeah. Well, I followed your advice." He touches his cheek ruefully. 

"I see," Arthur says, and loosens up visibly, shoulders slacking. He smiles a little. "Your hair's still a bird's nest."

"A bit better, though?" he asks.

"A bit," Arthur gives him charitably.

 

 

"Wait, are you looking up the Spit Light too?" Eames asks merrily, picking a book that says _The Lighthouses of Montseag Island_ from Arthur's pile. 

"No," Arthur says.

"You _are_!" Eames laughs. "Don't deny it."

"I didn't want to look unprepared," he grumbles. 

Eames shows him his own selection. "Look at this," he says and flips open _Lighthouses of Maine_ , makes Arthur look at the early blueprints of The Great Head. 

He watches Arthur's face as Arthur sits down and runs his fingers over the clean lines. "Hmmm."

"Yeah?"

"She's shorter than they planned her," Arthur says. "And she was going to be candy-striped." 

"I like her as she is. She's beautiful. Majestic. A Queen," Eames says and Arthur looks up at him and then away, nodding.

"All right, so what did you find. Other than this. Uh. Which is great, Eames, thank you," Arthur says.

"Right. Well. The Spit Light. She was built in 1808. One of the _first_ on the island, the 10th oldest in the state and one of the first post-Rebellion lighthouses--" he pauses. 

Arthur looks up at him from the table. 

"--post-Rebellion...post-War of Independence. I'm not really sure how you colonials prefer--"

"What else, Eames," Arthur sighs, dragging a book over and flipping it open.

"There was a shipwreck, the Katherine MacGuire, that hit the Spit rock in 1898. One of the deadliest in Maine history. And apparently Longfellow summered nearby and wrote about The Spit Light in some journal--"

"--right," Arthur agrees, already aware of the fact.

"Also, Edgar Allan Poe was a massive twat to Longfellow, which apparently is why no one ever reads Annabel Lee at the amphitheater during _Montseag Days_."

Arthur stares at him, confused.

"No matter. I was just reading from there." He sits back down at his books and Arthur flips open one of his own. Together, they read for a while, studiously. Sometimes, he offers a little fact "One of the keepers in the 1950s helped build the Elementary School," and "Some rare lichen grows on Spit Rocks, on the eastside. It's not precisely rare. But it's uncommon in Maine. It turns red in the summer."

Arthur just half-listens, turning his pages. Eames shoots him curious looks, cataloging the man's flexing jaw and the critical cut to his brow that deepens when he's reading.

"Oh! This is a good. I knew this one. The old Fresnel lens is her original. At least, her original Fresnel. That in and of itself is reason to preserve it. Bloody thing was neglected when most of the state lights were retrofitted with those ugly airport beacons."

"Mmm, yeah. They wanted mine too, but I put my foot down," Arthur says and smirks to himself, gloating, and right then, Eames realizes that Arthur is...Arthur is _fucking lovely_.

"Oh," he lets slip, genuinely surprised.

"Hm?" Arthur pages through a book.

"Nothing. _Well_ ," he says stupidly. 

He blushes. It's appalling how unfamiliar it is, attraction. It's been so long...

Christ, it's been almost 9 months since he'd gotten over Hamish. 

He screws his attention down, back to his book. Ignores the way Arthur's lithe fingers move, turning pages.

 

 

He waits on the dock for two hours, new books braced on his knee. And then _The Trajan_ appears on the horizon and slowly slips into the harbor.

He gets a chance to see Ariadne doing her boat magic or what have you, with ropes and quick sea-knots and clapping, bare feet as she runs across the schooner's wood deck.

"What's up, Eames?" she calls across, grinning at him while her hands flash about, tying down sail.

"Miss Ariadne, will you be my agony aunt for this evening?" he yells to her.

She makes a face. 

Yusuf appears, hair askew from the wind. "She's got to be up early! We're heading up to Newfoundland in the morning!"

"Eames, come with us! It's only an overnight trip and Diane's bunk is free," Ariadne says. 

Yusuf shrugs in agreement. 

Which is how Eames sees the asshole of morning, the wrong side of 4 am, when Yusuf comes to batter on his door and cart him off with a sleepy Ariadne, back to the bay.

 

 

He doesn't open his eyes completely until there's some tea in his hands and the sun suddenly blazes, hazy and hot out of the ocean. Then he stares at it glassily as the schooner skips across the water of the sound, headed north, north-east up the coast. 

Ariadne scratches her freckled arm, face clear and happy.

"It's beautiful," he tells her, voice rusty. "But I have to be back by Sunday. I have that thing with...the Heritage Foundation," because it's as if Arthur Hoffmann is just sitting there now, at the front of his brain, taking up his thoughts. 

"Who's watching your lighthouse?" Ariadne asks, looking over.

"Mmmm. There's a guy, Robert. He usually watches it for me when I'm not around. He knows who to call if she goes out."

Ariadne nods. "Why do you need an agony aunt?" she asks softly. 

He sighs, pinches at the bridge of his nose and says "This is embarrassing."

"You're all aflutter again, aren't you, and this time not for some douchy Irishman you left back home," she guesses.

He shoots her a look. 

"Whoever it is, I bet you want in his pants so hard," she grins sharkishly. "Eames! You've been a freaking monk!"

"Oh Ariadne," he laments. 

"You should probably talk to Yusuf. He's the sympathetic one," she says, and stands up, moving easily away, hands reaching for ropes as she goes.

"And what would your more practical advice be?" he has to ask her.

She pauses and does a rough, gyrating rendition of _Funkadelic's_ Hit it and Quit It. 

He snorts, waves her off.

 

 

He finds Yusuf below, in his makeshift lab. There are bottles of algae from all over the east coast. He picks up a faint green one, stirs it up carefully. It's marked _Bay of Fundy_.

Yusuf peers at him over his glasses, but keeps writing in some notebook and then making new bottle labels. Finally, Eames says "Fuck, so I might fancy the little notice-hammering bastard."

Yusuf takes off his glasses and turns to him. "Do you want me to tell you everything I know about him?"

"Yes," Eames bites out.

 

 

Arthur Hoffmann:

The second Arthur Hoffmann of The Great Headlight, after his grandfather.  
Bowdoin graduate  
only child  
first Jewish member of the Montseag Heritage Foundation  
alternate historian for the summer tourist 'Widow's Walk' along the harbor  
26 or 27 years old

"That's it?" Eames says unhappily.

"Well, he. Oh. He wears sweater vests sometimes."

Eames stares at him. 

"We're not very well acquainted," Yusuf amends. 

"Do you perhaps know if he's _gay_ " Eames asks.

"Oh. No. I...well. No. I don't seem to have a very good ah. Gaydar. Or--" Yusuf fumbles and then looks sheepish.

"Gaydar," Eames snorts and gets up. 

 

 

There's a man named Tom on board who plays his guitar when the sun sets. They reach port by dinner, sit out and listen and light the lanterns as the sun sinks back into her bed in the west. 

Somehow, Arthur Hoffmann's sexuality becomes the general topic of discussion for the evening.

"Oh!" Ariadne just says. " _Arthur_. I should have guessed." And she slugs Eames in the shoulder in approval.

"He's definitely gay," Erin says, coming back to it. "Without a doubt."

"But _how_ do you know?" Eames groans. "Has he had a boyfriend?"

Erin considers, shrugging.

"She thinks he's gay because he wears clothes that fit him," Geetha says, waving her hands. "He dresses nice! It's not factual proof of his sexuality."

"Well, I'm pretty sure he was married once," David says, but Ariadne rolls her eyes because David is apparently a complete bullshitter. It's not even on purpose. He just gets his facts wrong.

"Maybe he was gay married. They have that now," Erin says. "Don't they have that now?"

Ariadne looks at Eames like she can't believe this conversation is happening, and so he chuckles and they drag Yusuf away to his lab where there is a bottle of gin hiding.

 

 

"Ugh, gin. Why?" Eames coughs, grimacing.

"Erin is so repressed," Ariadne says, swigging from the bottle.

"She's from Texas, Ariadne," Yusuf mutters and starts working again, fiddling around with a pen in his notebook.

"So?" she says. "What does that mean?"

"Texas has a certain stratification of values...It's a purple state," Eames tries to explain. 

"What?" she laughs "He's mangling Terry Gross again," she tells Yusuf. "And what do you know about Texas, Eames? You've never even been out of New England."

Yusuf looks up, frowning. "Wait, you haven't, have you? Did you bring your passport?"

"I try not to bring my passport anywhere it might get wet." 

Eames did not bring his passport.

Yusuf palms his face.

"Oh my god, are we going to have to smuggle Eames into _Canada_!?" Ariadne loses it. 

 

He waits on the boat as the others disembark, nested up and sleeping most of the morning away in a tiny bunk that someone (Diane?) had decorated with photos of a brown labradoodle. 

 

"There you are," Yusuf says, suddenly waking him. 

He peers blearily out of the sleeping bag. "Hm?"

"We're done. I've got my samples. We're headed back to Montseag. Do you want to come up for brunch?"

He shoves out of the bunk, feeling lung-sore from being crooked up all funny, sweaty. He runs his hand through his hair.

"It really is quite different," Yusuf says, and smiles. "Without the beard."

 

 

They eat ham sandwiches and boiled eggs and giant cookies Diane left them in the galley. Then they're running with the wind, back along the coast towards home.

"We'll be in late, but you'll be able to sleep in your bed tonight," Yusuf tells him, and shoves up his sleeves to help tie some sort of rope to something. Eames doesn't know the first thing about sailing.

"Let me try to explain," Geetha says, and the sea sprays them in the back. He jumps and she just laughs. She tries her damnedest to educate him while they're sitting in the sun. "...you must think of it like...the boat below the water is a "second sail," right? Because the flow of water over the underwater hull creates hydrodynamic forces, which combine with the aerodynamic forces--" but Eames just nods and frowns and looks interested while his brain slips off to imagine Arthur Hoffmann wielding his hammer. And fretting over notices. And snarling at Eames. And just being a completely wonderful little shit.

"You're not listening," Geetha sighs. "It's not that hard!"

"You lost me at hydrodynamic," he admits.

She throws her hands up, exasperated.

 

 

He lights a candle to brush his teeth. It's past 4 am, and he really should get into bed, but he needs to brush his teeth or he won't sleep. 

He looks into the mirror, startles when a bare-faced, tan young man looks back at him. 

Then he smiles brokenly, surprised that he may be rather handsome after all.

 

 

He sleeps in and when he finally wakes at noon, he spends an hour nervously getting his notes together for Sunday. Then he bikes down to get his hair cut in the village. When he's done, he keeps patting at his shorn nape, feeling naked. He wanders to Thistle's in hopes of finding Arthur. But no one is about, just the lady who runs the place and her sleeping, greying old tabby cat.

Later, he spends an inordinate amount of time sitting on a bench by the square eating peanut brittle, feeling wistful, wondering where, on their little island, Arthur was spending his afternoon.

 

 

He walks up to Arthur's lighthouse the next evening with a tie in his hands, uncertain if he should put it on. He's wearing a grey sweater and brown slacks, a cream, linen shirt. 

He picks a handful of wild flowers on the way, mind somewhere else as he strolls along real slow to make up for the fact that he left home too early. But when he climbs the hill beside the cemetery and sees Arthur's towering, black-striped Headlight, standing sentinel at the shore, he shakes the flowers out of his hands, embarrassed. What's he doing, bringing Arthur flowers?

What a fool.

By the time he knocks, he's still early and twisting his tie around in his fists, biting his lip.

Arthur answers with his own shirt cuffs rolled up, lean arms wet, a hand towel in his hands like he's cleaning up. He looks at Eames for a long moment.

Eames stands in the sunlit door, feeling tender-skinned and half in love under his gaze.

Arthur lets him in with a quiet "C-come in."

 

 

Eames doesn't know what to say, choked up on all this _anticipation_. So he lifts the tie and makes a face and says "Tie or no tie?" all self-effacing.

"No tie," Arthur says easily, and then puts out his hand. Eames gives him the tie after a moment's confusion, watches Arthur fold it carefully and tuck it into a clean, porcelain vase by the door.

Arthur's kitchen is warm and full of sunlight. Eames relaxes a little, draws his fingers along the crease of the cookbook he finds, open on the slate island.

He takes a deep breath, scenting, and watches Arthur open a big, cherry-red dutch oven on the stove top. He stirs something then looks back at Eames. 

"It smells...it smells bloody amazing in here," Eames says, grinning.

"It's just Coq au vin," Arthur waves it off, modest. 

Eames stammers a laugh, says "Yeah. That's just _peasant_ food, ennit?"

Arthur meets his gaze and snorts, goes to wash his neat hands in the sink. 

Eames takes a moment to enjoy him, the casual shirt sleeves rolled smartly and the navy blue sweater vest. The pressed, thin-grain, tan corduroys that fit slim and lean.

"Would you like a glass?" Arthur asks, holding up a half-finished bottle of Bordeaux. 

"Mmm," Eames agrees and Arthur pours for them both. 

They drink companionably while Eames looks at the cookbook a little closer, flips a few pages, though he keeps a finger in Arthur's place. 

"Lets go into the library. I found a few things," Arthur tells him finally. 

"Oh yes, the _library_ ," Eames drawls, voice stuffy. He swirls his wine, tries to look respectable.

"Stop," Arthur says, voice flat, though there's a little smile tugging the corner of his lips.

"You're just so posh, I can't help it."

 

"Look," Arthur beckons. Arthur's library has a small, roll-top desk, shelves lined with tomes and stacks of maps. And then a wide window overlooking the water. Eames gets lost in the view for a breath, says "Woah."

Arthur gets caught up with him. "I can see every ship and ferry and fishing boat and lobster haul coming in from this window," Arthur tells him, voice warm. 

"It's really beautiful," Eames says.

Arthur's hand lights just so on his elbow, and Eames goes where Arthur gently draws him, heart in his throat.

"I just found this today," Arthur says, freeing him, gesturing to a book on the open desk.

Eames clears his throat, squints. But then picks it up and looks closer.

After a moment, he realizes what he's reading. "Oh!" he says. "That's--"

"That's _exactly_ what we need, Eames. William McKinley commemorated the Spit Light's service after the shipwreck of the Katherine MacGuire. No other lighthouse in the state has ever been honored by a president."

Eames is surprised. "But. I thought that was considered the deadliest shipwreck of its time. Of ever--"

Arthur jumps in, excited. " _Yes_ , but. Apparently the keeper and his wife dragged survivors off the rock the whole night. If it wasn't for their tenacity, most everyone would have perished."

"Tenacity?" Eames says, teasing a little. Arthur's gotten all wound up. He has a little length of hair, fallen in his eyes. He's cute as fuck.

"You should be proud," Arthur says, combing his hair back. "Your lamp is the little lighthouse that could."

 

Eames keeps the book tucked under his arm, sits on a stool at the kitchen island as Arthur finishes up.

"A little bird told me," Arthur begins, doing the most devilish thing with his eyes, letting them sneakily flash to the side, at Eames. "...that you're good friends with _The Trajan_."

"Ahh, yes. Yes. It was her mistress Ariadne who did the honors," he says, and rubs, slaps at his clean-cut jaw and cheek. Arthur watches, says "Mmm, yeah. So? Are you two--?"

Eames can't follow for a second.

"--she's cute. Ariadne's pretty cute," Arthur says agreeably, and he looks pleased with himself, chopping the rest of the parsley. Eames frowns. 

"Yeah. No. No. I um..." Eames clears his throat. "I uh."

Arthur looks up at him, smiling a little, waiting. Pained, Eames finishes.

"I think you should know. I'm...gay, Arthur."

The Coq au vin bubbles along. Eames makes an apologetic grimace at the awkwardness, then looks away. Arthur's expression is too unknown, too caught off guard for him to deal with.

"I uh--" he says but that's exactly, preposterously when the door bell rings.

Arthur wipes off his hands on a towel, stands up stiffly and goes to open the door.

"Shit," Eames swears low to himself, thumping his fist to his forehead. 

 

 

He hovers in the entry way as Arthur embraces an older woman with a purple shawl on. She gives him a fond hug, the way an old family friend might.

When she pulls away, she turns her eyes on Eames.

"Oh Arthur, is this your new gentleman friend?" she asks, smiling between them.

Eames freezes. Because oh. _Oh_.

Hastily, Arthur says "No! That's...no. He's uh--"

"--whatever happened to your last one? Everett? He was a handsome young man."

Looking increasingly uncomfortable, Arthur shoves his hands into his pockets, says "He got a job in Nova Scotia. A really...good job."

They all stand there in the entryway, quiet.

It's such a painful silence, Eames can't help but blurt out "Well. His loss then."

The look on Arthur's face is just...priceless.

"--and who are you, dear?" the lady asks, turning her attention on Eames, her small eyes sharp.

"Oh, sorry Lynn," Arthur winces visibly. "This is Eames. He's the keeper at the Spit Light. Eames, this is Lynn Weycombe. She's the co-chair of the Heritage Foundation."

"Ah, wait," Lynn says "I remember your paperwork. You have a most unusual name. What is it?" She looks him over. Eames shakes his head, nerves jangling. "Oh no," he says. "Just Eames. Just--"

" _Darwin_. Isn't it Darwin? Darwin Eames," she says gleefully.

"Oh. Well," Eames says.

Arthur looks at him. Eames refuses to make eye contact, to witness the horror there.

"Am I wrong?" she asks airly.

Eames pulls himself together, says gently "No mum. But, please. Most people just call me Eames."

He's saved by the arrival of a station wagon, and an old man who gets out with a bottle of wine in hand.

"Miles!" Arthur says loudly, relieved, going out to greet him.

 

 

It's just Lynn and Miles, an intimate little affair on the table Arthur sets up on the garden-walk out back. Eames wanders around Arthur's kitchen gardens for a while, enjoying the sun on his face and the shadow of the lighthouse moving across the grass. When he looks over, he can see Arthur busy setting the table. 

He waits for after dinner, when everyone is full of good food, to bring up his lighthouse dilemma. By then, he's made headway with Miles, who is also an expat, an Oxford scholar. They talk about home, about London, about favorite dishes that they were dismayed to find lacking in the Americas.

"Banoffee pie. That's it. That's what I miss the most," Miles says, tossing his cloth napkin down with a flourish. Eames laughs. "And what a perfect finish that would have been to this lovely meal."

Arthur, picking up their dishes, gives Miles an amused smile. Eames stands and begins to help Arthur clear, but Arthur shakes his head once, gives him a meaningful look.

Eames sits again, chastened. He cleans his suddenly sweaty palms on his knees. 

He watches Arthur walk back into the house and then says "So. I actually have a hidden agenda--"

"--the lighthouse," Lynn interrupts knowingly. She drinks her wine, looking at him, eyes dancing.

Miles turns his full attention on Eames, curious.

"Yes," he agrees. "I've done some research, and I feel like it would be a great loss to the rich, living history of Montseag, to decommission the Spit Light and develop her rock--"

" _Ah_ ," Lynn says.

He trips a little, but goes on. "While it might not look like much, especially...well," he waves his hand ruefully at the lighthouse before them. "It has some amazing qualities and...and _stories_ that make it one of a kind, not only compared to the other lighthouses on the island, but compared to others in the state, in... _New England_."

He pauses when he notices Arthur standing near, a crooked smile on his face, listening.

He swallows. 

"See. In 1898 there was a shipwreck. I know you've heard of it because it's a famous local story. Some 200 people drowned when the Katherine MacGuire--" 

"We-ell," Lynn says, ignoring him. "You certainly hit up right person, Darwin, since the Tidepool Museum project _was_ Arthur's personal scheme, after all. Though it's a bit late. This would have been better timed months ago, when Arthur first proposed the project." And then she sits back, wine glass in hand, looking like the cat who got the cream.

Eames' hands fall open on the table. 

Arthur's smile fades.

Miles clears his throat and says "Well, to be fair, we all put in our share of time on the Tidepool proposal--"

Eames tries to recover, but he's just so shocked, his insides feel tight and breathless. He looks at the half-cleared table, blinks a few times. Then he looks blankly at Arthur, whose face is wretched. 

The wind touches at his cheek. His eyes suddenly sting sharply at the let-down and that's what makes him push up out of his chair. 

Arthur instantly starts walking around to him.

"I uh. I just forgot that I've got...a--" He's so fucking transparent, he almost doesn't bother finishing."--a part to pick up, in the village. Need it for tonight. So uh, nice to meet you all. I'll see myself out."

He grabs his sweater off the back of his chair, hears Arthur saying "Wait, Eames."

He makes it halfway around the lighthouse, out of sight of the others when Arthur catches his elbow. "It's not...I had the idea for the Museum, fine. But it wasn't me who settled on the Spit."

Eames pauses, looks at him. He gnaws his lip.

Arthur's face is all brittle.

"Did you propose it, though? My lighthouse? As a possible site?"

Arthur looks contrite then, his eyes downcast, and it's all Eames needs. He shakes his head, mutters " _Christ_ ," and walks away.

It almost helps when he hears Arthur break all decorum and call, voice cracking like a teenager "Eames!"

 

 

Ariadne and Yusuf are waiting in his kitchen, giggling when he opens the door.

It's gotten dark. 

"How did it go?" Ariadne asks, putting down her beer, chipper.

Eames faceplants on his bed.

They're silent for a while. Then he feels Ariadne sit beside him tentatively, touch his arm. "Are you ok?"

"It's his fault. The development project was his idea," Eames says thickly. Neither ask him who he's talking about.

"Oh shit," Ariadne says feelingly.

"Shit indeed," Yusuf agrees, voice low and angry. 

They wait for Eames to come out of his black mood. And then he sits up, wiping his pillow-creased face.

Ariadne smiles softly, says "You look really handsome."

Eames feels like a complete asshole. "I picked him wildflowers, on the way over."

Ariadne's smile gets a little tight. 

He sighs. "Glad I tossed em before I got there."

 

 

He's up by himself after the two go home, clanging away at the gearbox.

You never know when she'll do this, spring a gear randomly so he has to stay up all night swearing under his breath, putting her back together. 

Halfway through, his hands start trembling as he thinks about taking his wrench to the whole thing. Not like anyone needs her, with that stupid communications tower light.

But he sucks on his bottom lip and finishes his work. 

He's worn out when he falls into bed again. Yet he still lies awake with the blanket wrapped around his head like a hood, unhappy.

 

 

He's weak-limbed and grumpy when he opens his door and finds Arthur sitting on the rocks in his red fleece, waiting for him.

"You've got to be kidding me," he mutters under his breath and walks right past him to go up to the light.

"Wait, you have to at least hear me out," Arthur says, following.

Eames snorts, starts climbing the stairs. He always checks her after a hard night.

"I'm sorry! I never knew anything about the Spit Light. I just thought it was another of those old, defunct lights. And all I knew about you was that you'd come on a year ago, and that you weren't a local. I had no idea you'd be so passionate about your job," Arthur explains, raising his voice and following slowly as Eames climbs.

Eames frowns, ignoring him.

"I didn't think they'd even choose the Spit. There's a better spot underneath Gull's Neck beach, but it's too costly. It...it was a surprise to me too."

Eames gets up to the gearbox, opens her up. Looks her over.

Arthur catches up.

"And then I met you. And I was surprised about how much you cared about her and...and then I felt sick about it because I'd hurt you and I started reading up. And you're right. Eames, fuck. You're right. She should be protected."

Eames closes the box with a sharp _CLACK_ , looks at him hard.

"Ok," he says, arms crossed over his chest.

Arthur is eager then, eyebrows rising. "Ok?"

"Fix it then," Eames says, and moves past, going back down the stairs.

Arthur lets out an exasperated sigh. "I can't--!"

"Hm," Eames says, unimpressed.

"Eames," Arthur follows. "Please. I... _fuck_. They won't listen now. Everyone's set on this stupid...The town's already approved the site for development."

Eames holds his tongue and walks out of the lighthouse, back to his cottage. Arthur trails him.

"Please. Can you just...try to understand," Arthur says and Eames finally looks at him. 

"You could have just told me," Eames says. "The lighthouse matters to me, yeah. But it mattered more that...that you--" he doesn't even know how to finish without totally mortifying himself.

Arthur's eyes widen. 

Eames tenses, swears. Goes back inside.

"Oh fuck me," Arthur says feverishly. "Eames, wait!"

 

 

He knocks for a while, angry raps that slow into sad, listless knocks that come spaced out. Like Arthur's just sitting there, clonking his head back against the door.

At first, Eames paces because he can't stand it. And then he climbs into bed and puts the blanket over his head again.

After a while, it stops. And a piece of paper slides under his door.

_I'm going to try something. Be back in a few days._

_-A_

Eames frowns at it, hears the Saab cut up the shell drive. 

He tucks it under a mug on the table, worries his thumbnail with his teeth and starts waiting.

 

The eviction notice comes later the next morning. 

That evening, before he bikes to meet Yusuf at the harbor, a big dump truck shows, parks in the grass by the shell drive and leaves ugly, muddy ruts. 

Yusuf looks through the eviction notice, brow marred. "Should I contact a lawyer?"

"No," Eames sighs, scratching a mosquito bite on his thigh. "It's not my property. I'm not even renting. The cottage comes with the job."

Yusuf sets down the papers on the bench between them. Eames keeps plucking at the mosquito bite, distracting himself.

Across the water, _The Trajan_ is battened down for the night, wood burnishing in the sinking sun.

"I wish I had a place for you here. I'm subletting my room in Castine, but I could try to cut the agreement early--"

"No," Eames says. "Perhaps it's time for me to think about heading home."

Yusuf looks surprised. "Home? To _England_ home?"

Eames shrugs, mouth turned down. 

"Bloody hell," Yusuf says.

 

 

There are a handful of things he wants to do on the island before they knock his lamp down and dig his home up like a few nuisance rocks in a field. 

1.) On Monday, he bikes around the entire island. There are three roads, Seal Ledge, Tom Nevers Road, and Rural Route 2. Seal Ledge chases the shore, runs along a rock wall with a drop right into the sea. Tom Nevers cuts away and into the cool, pine woods by the pond. There are little fairy houses made by summer children in the needles. He peers into one as he pauses to drain his water bottle. Rural Route 2 is the busiest, with cars and other bikers and people dragging blankets and dogs on leashes down to the public beach. He stops at an ice cream stand and gets a soft-serve vanilla cone. 

He makes it back well before 3 and then drops his bike in the middle of the drive and falls on his back in the high grass.

He falls asleep there, snoring.

 

2.) Robert sets against the gearbox, says "You want to hand me that measuring tape?"

Eames passes it up. 

And then they both lift themselves into the walkway around the lamp. 

He doesn't come up here unless he's polishing the glass. The space is too cramped for him to stand up straight. Robert has no problem, pacing around the quiet Fresnel lens, eyeing it.

"Jesus," he says, and laughs. "It's huge."

"I know," Eames says, pawing the back of his neck. "You think it can be salvaged?"

"How did they even get it in here?" Robert wonders, mystified. "Maybe they craned it over?"

"Christ, Robbie, I was hoping you would have a better idea than me," Eames mutters.

"Look at that," Robert says, looking at her brass chariots. He flashes Eames a smile. "Give me a minute."

Eames watches him take some measurements. And then Robert lets the tape run itself back into its holder. He stands aside, thinking.

"Wait, does this thing come apart?" Robert asks suddenly.

Eames considers and groans. "Oh god, probably."

 

The next afternoon, Robert takes the lens apart, one glass piece at a time. 

Eames stands nearby, like a nervous parent, hands holding his head.

There are 16 pieces in all. Each one easy enough for a man to carry down the stairs.

He doesn't breathe easy again until Robert works the glass puzzle back together and she's back to being whole and beautiful.

"We can do this," Robert says. "When the time comes, she'll be nice and safe as houses in my boat shed."

Eames pats him on the back, heart-lifted. 

 

3.) "This is so fucked," Ariadne talk-whispers in his ear.

"What is with you not being able to actually whisper?" Eames really whispers, back to her.

"Oh my god, is she awake?!" 

They both duck behind the hydrangeas, away from the lighted window where a figure is crossing, casting a shadow on the lawn.

Eames slaps a palm over Ariadne's mouth to smother her laughter.

"Ariadne. Dear. Do shut up," he whispers, grinning.

Finally, he lets her go and they catch their breath.

"What is she doing?" Ariadne says as the figure wanders past again.

"Hush now. We'll have to wait it out," Eames murmurs.

They sit in the cold grass for a long while, leaning against each other. 

"I can't believe you're leaving," Ariadne says, voice low.

"You're leaving too, in a month," he reminds her.

She scoffs. "In a _month_. Do you know how much crazy-awesome shit we could have gotten up to, in a month?"

He smiles. "Maybe I'm done with crazy-awesome shit for a while."

She looks around at him, disapproving. 

"That's not possible, Eames," she tells him.

 

The house light goes out and he gently nudges Ariadne off his knee. "Huh?" she says.

He points and she nods, gets up slowly, plastic grocery bag rustling in her hand.

They walk backwards several feet. "How close do you need to be?" he asks her.

She doesn't know, so she stops, digs out an egg and throws it.

It hits the house with a healthy _THUMP_.

"Oh my god," Ariadne cracks up.

"Shit. Shit! Come on, quick!" He laughs with her and grabs the bag from her, fisting up an egg so fast it breaks in his hand.

"Oh ohhhh," she points at him flicking egg off his fingers.

He grabs another and throws it. Then another. And another. All of them break, smearing the house with silvery-wet in the moonlight.

"Come on, Ariadne! This was your idea," he hisses at her, but she's punchy from staying up late, out of control now, laughing and holding her stomach.

He gets six before he hears a woman shouting "Who do you think you are?! I called the police on you, you delinquents!"

"Run, run!" Eames grabs her shoulder. "I already have a record! If they catch us here, we're fucked!"

Ariadne heaves herself off the ground, takes his hand and then run all the way down to the street before they have to roll into a gully to wait out a car passing.

They spend the rest of the run back to the lighthouse ducking behind trees and throwing themselves over rock walls, laughing.

Yusuf meets them with some rum and cokes, grinning back at Ariadne's happy face. He makes a point of wiping the grime off her cheek.

"These should be hot toddys. Then the night would be perfect," he tells them warmly, passing them glasses.

"This is just right. Thank you. And thank you, miss Ariadne, for your help," Eames says. 

"Mmm," Ariadne pauses mid sip and lifts her glass "To Lynn Weycombe. May you spend the day tomorrow scraping sun-cooked egg off your house."

"Hear, hear," Yusuf says, twinkling.

 

 

He puts Martha Wainwright on his battered cd player and tries to pack. But every time he puts something away, he finds himself digging it out later, to make tea or change his shirt or brush his teeth. He's got opened boxes everywhere, their innards spilling out.

He slumps into a chair, head in his hands.

He should call his mum. Make travel plans with her. See if his room is free for a few days. Just another 30-something, washed up lighthouse keeper, moving back home with his mum.

"Arse," he mutters, sore with himself.

He ends up swaying around with a mug of cold tea in his hand, too sober. And then thinking about Arthur in bed, a pillow hugged up to his chest. 

 

The next morning, Lynn Weycombe is there with a contractor in an orange vest, pointing at shit. Eames comes out on the rocks with his cereal, watching, rubbing at the shadow of hair on his jaw.

He waves at them when they turn in his direction.

After a while, Lynn walks over. 

"They're going to begin surveying today," she tells him, looking speculatively at his cottage. "Have you moved your things out?"

He shakes his head. 

"Well--" she snaps.

"--I have a few friends coming tomorrow to help," he promises.

She seems appeased. She looks around at the lighthouse, the rocks, the scraggly field, all of Eames' quiet dominion. 

"They used to do sleigh rides down here. The Franklins had two big Draft horses. From the village square along Seal Ridge to here. They strung up lights and served big cups of hot cider out of the cottage door," she tells him.

"That sounds really lovely," he says, and means it. She looks at him. And then frowns to herself.

"They stopped in the 70s. Said it was too dangerous, riding a sleigh out onto the icy rocks."

She looks back at the lighthouse with her hands on her hips. "She's a squat little thing, isn't she?" 

Eames scowls.

 

That night, they wander around the field, moving the contractor's stakes while Yusuf sits cross-legged in the kitchen, packing.

Eames pulls one and chucks it into the sea. 

"They're just going to end up fining me for putting them off a day or two. And get right back to it," he says to Ariadne. And then he hugs his beer bottle to his chest.

"Well, a few days might make a difference, who knows?" She moves one of the little red flagged stakes, replaces it with a yellow flagged one.

He watches and wonders where Arthur fucking Hoffmann is, and why he isn't here, making it up to him.

 

 

He's up early, cranky as hell, watching the construction equipment arrive, leaving ugly, muddy tracks.

The lighthouse stones shiver. The spoons clink together in a box on the floor. 

He's drunk a few cups of tea to settle his nerves when he sees Yusuf, loping down the path, his face frown-marred as he looks at the mess of Eames' field.

"Oh good, you're here," he mutters, pulling Yusuf into his cottage and closing the door.

"Are you ready? I called Robert to bring a truck--" and then he looks around at Eames' messy cottage, the empty, knocked over boxes.

"I...I thought I had more packed than this?" he says carefully.

Eames pulls open his junk drawer, digs around until he comes out with a bike chain. It's not perfect, but it's the best he has.

"Did you _un_ pack?!" Yusuf asks, scandalized. 

"If I chain myself to the lighthouse--" Eames tells him, practicing wrapping the bike chain around his arms.

"What?!" Yusuf says.

Ariadne comes in with a Styrofoam cup of coffee in her hands. "They've got a little food table set up out there!" she says.

She sees Eames' hands all wrapped up with the chain. Quirks an eyebrow at Yusuf.

"This idiot is going to chain himself to the lighthouse," he says low, shaking his head.

"Oh, Eames. They'll be able to cut that in seconds," she sighs.

"I have to try," he says, voice cracking, upset. 

He gives them both a reproachful look as they come in to soothe at him.

"Well," Yusuf exhales, waving a hand. "We could lock the lighthouse door from the inside too, while you're up there. And...I don't know. Run interference. It might...buy us some time?"

Eames exhales, nodding.

"I'll knock over the food table. No construction worker worth his salt is going be able to salvage morale after watching his coffee get spilled on the ground."

Yusuf leans in. "She often complains about workplace morale when Diane runs out of jumbo cookies."

"Listen, jokers," Eames interrupts. "We've got twenty minutes or less to get me up in the lamp. They've got the crane out there."

They all lean over the sink to look out the window at the big, creaking crane, crawling up out of the woods.

 

 

He's walking swiftly out of the cottage with Ariadne and Yusuf at his back when someone yells "Hey, you three!"

He freezes. Ariadne's eyes bug out of her head. "Don't. Run," he mutters at her.

They look around and see the sheriff there, walking towards them with a hard set to his features.

"Oh mother of God," Yusuf says under his breath.

"Should I go for it?" Eames breathes.

"Yes!" Ariadne snaps just as Yusuf hisses "No!"

The sheriff stalks towards them.

"Well? Should I?" Eames wonders.

"It's too late! He's on to us!" Ariadne says and then flees. 

"Ariadne!" Eames barks after her. "You...Judas!"

The sheriff watches Ariadne go and then gives them both stern looks. "I'm here to make sure you all stay clear of the crew. If you have anything left in the house, I can help you clear it out. If you're planning on staying to watch, you'll need to put on some protective gear."

"Oh," Eames says. He and Yusuf exchange a look. "Well, that's kindly of you."

The sheriff knocks him on the shoulder. "It's a damn shame, I like this ugly old thing."

Eames nods, and they slowly follow him up, back towards the field.

"What's that, a bike chain?" he asks Eames, who quickly drops the chain on the ground by the cottage.

"Yeah, mmm," Eames says, "I'll just move some of my things."

 

 

They're moving boxes in the late afternoon under the watchful eye of the sheriff when Robert appears with a couple of his friends. They maneuver around the construction equipment.

"All right?" he asks Eames cryptically.

Eames looks at him for a long while and then says "Mm. But give it a few, yeah? Lets save it until it's absolutely necessary."

Robert nods, like he understands somehow that ripping out her fresnel lens is akin to taking out someone's heart, and that it should most definitely be considered the very last resort.

Lynn Weycombe stands nearby, smiling, heartened by all the work around her. 

Suddenly, she says "Just you wait, Mr. Eames. The Tidepool museum will rejuvenate tourist commerce. There couldn't be a better step forward, for Montseag."

Eames wants to tell her to fuck _right_ off. Or to take her Tidepool museum and shove it up her arse. Or to please, please, please? But before he can wet his mouth to say anything, he hears a shout.

 

"Wait, wait!" a man is shouting, running across the field from the drive. "Wait!"

Eames squints. It's _Arthur_. Arthur in white shirt sleeves, his tie streaming back over his shoulder.

By the time he gets to them, he's out of breath. Really out of breath. And grinning. He stumbles up to Eames, clutches a hold of Eames' shirt and says, in words broken by his panting "This is like. Ah. A bad movie."

"Is it, love?" Eames asks, amused.

"I. I. Wouldn't even. W-watch. This movie," and then he grins wider, cheeks pitted with little dimples that Eames looks on with awe.

"Arthur?" Lynn asks, put out.

Arthur pulls himself back together, breathing deeply, and pushes his hair into place. Eames shifts the tie off his shoulder for him before Arthur marches up to Lynn, face determined.

He's holding a crumpled packet of papers in his fist. 

"What is this?" she asks, confused.

"It's the New England Lighthouse Preservation Society," Arthur says.

 _NELPS_? Eames mouths to himself.

"They opened our case. They're going to work with the State of Maine to determine if the Spit Light should be considered a protected historical site. Until a decision comes down, there's a moratorium on any development here. Every single rock must be accounted for."

Arthur's wrong. In a movie, there would be cheers, a panorama of clapping, celebrating locals. And Arthur would be lifted onto everyone's shoulders and carried somewhere into the end credits. And the bad guys would look at each other and scowl loathsomely. And maybe someone would get a cake in the face during some slapstick comedy shtick involving a dog.

Instead, Lynn puts on her reading glasses and reads through the paperwork while Eames holds his breath. And, anticlimatically, she takes off her glasses again and says, a bit frazzled "Of course, Arthur, if they're opening a _case_..."

Eames doesn't know what to do with his face. He cracks a smile so big, he has to cover it with both his hands. He stares at Arthur, his face scrunched up. And he's so pleased when Arthur finds his eyes immediately and offers him a little, wry smile in return.

"We'll need to move all this equipment off the property. I don't want anyone to question the site's sanctity while it's being investigated," Lynn is telling the contractor.

Yusuf gives Eames a big hug and says "See? See?" like it means something. He hugs him back, laughing.

Robert steps up then, gives him a back-patting, manly hug and says "I'll just head out. That was good timing, huh?"

Arthur's next, his smile beautiful but struggling to stay in place as he blusters "I'm so sorry. For before. I should have told you."

And Eames can't help himself. He grabs Arthur Hoffmann by his doe-sweet nape, tugs him near and breathes "Stay? For tea?"

Arthur exhales gustily, nods. Claws a hand to Eames' arm and _squeezes_.

 

 

The sun is low, sinking with the late afternoon.

Yusuf and Ariadne are sitting on the rocks by his door, but stand and glance at each other in surprise when Eames sheepishly walks up with Arthur Hoffmann at his side. 

"Erm," he begins and then he's at a loss. 

Like he senses the awkwardness, Arthur reaches for Eames' hand, threads their fingers together, makes it clear. Eames feels so besotted, he can't do anything but give everyone a watery smile.

Yusuf gets the picture, guides Ariadne away, hands on her shoulders, with a "We'll see you tomorrow. Uh. I mean, Monday! We'll see you Monday!" 

Ariadne goes with a snort.

Everyone is clearing off. The people who have come to gawk are on the drive, wandering back to the village. The dump truck beeps in warning as it starts to back up, leave the rutted field. Eames watches them go, his hand jumping a little, nervous in Arthur's grasp.

He jolts, surprised when he feels a chaste little peck of a kiss on his cheek.

Arthur's looking at him with all this determination. Eames can only stare back, caught. 

" _Darwin_ ," Arthur tries. 

Eames chuckles, rusty. He squeezes at Arthur's hand, feeling the reedy bones in his fingers. He gets his door open.

Arthur blushes. "Shit. What should I call you? Is that--?”

"Fuck, anything. I don't care," Eames says truthfully. "Just don't call me _Everett_ ," and Arthur kisses him, drinking the soft gasp off his lips.

 

 

"Ehm, this is quick. Is this too quick?" Eames wonders, trembling as Arthur tugs at his tee-shirt, all ardent and warm-eyed, pulling it off over Eames' head.

"Yeah--" Arthur breathes against his mouth and then they're kissing so deep and forceful, Eames accidentally knocks Arthur a little too hard into the cottage sink. 

"Mmmmmmnn," Arthur moans his approval.

Their mouths break apart and Eames suffers, suffers through trying to unbutton Arthur's shirt while his shoulder is devoured, tongue and teeth on his tattoos.

"God I want you," Arthur says too loud at his ear, voice sounding all wet and broken and turned on. Eames bites at the bit of flesh he's freed for himself, Arthur's collarbone, then turns them around and dances Arthur into his bed. 

Shaky fingers touch his lips. Arthur's eyes are all big and dark from his bed, looking at his sensitive mouth like Eames hurt him with it. 

"Oh is that--is that what you want?" Eames wonders, mouthing his fingertips. He finally gets Arthur's shirt open, leans down and presses a sweet, lover's kiss on the man's clenched abs. "You think about my mouth, do you?"

"Yessss, since you shaved your--oh my _god_ \--" Arthur hisses, writhes as Eames breaks open his trousers, sucking at his own fat bottom lip hungrily as he tugs the man's clothes off.

"Mmmm, beauty," Eames murmurs with a deeply felt appetite before he ducks down and wraps his mouth around the pretty, rosy head of Arthur Hoffmann's cock.

"Ah Christ!" Arthur cries out, voice all scratchy, shocked.

Eames moans earnestly while he sucks him off, eyes all thinned against the heat of it. His own cock lifts the front of his pants, twitching, making a mess of himself. He goes into the act of it, all feeling, just the sweet, silky pressure tapping on his tonsils, the friction hot-rubbing his lips til they go numb. The desperate impulse to gobble Arthur up and _keep_ him.

Then the sudden spurt, flesh surging in his mouth while Eames freezes, holds himself still for Arthur, so goddamn close to coming himself at the soft, choking sound Arthur makes when he orgasms.

He swallows. Lifts off, panting, mouth a mess as he shoves a hand into his pants and jerks himself to pleasure too, his other fist suddenly wrapped up all tight in Arthur's hair, pulling helplessly while he comes.

"Oh _Jesus_ , love," he growls, watching the man's eyes narrow tightly at the pain.

 

 

Arthur's hair is all sticking up where Eames pulled it, so Eames sheepishly tries to smooth it again. Arthur slaps his hand away, frowning. Does it himself. And then he sighs and rolls right into Eames' shoulder, suckles there again. Like his tattoos taste delicious.

"Its been a while for me," Eames tells him, voice craggy from the sex. 

Arthur seems to like it, from the little whimper he gives. His mouth is _busy_.

It's only natural that that mouth moves. Down, down. Til he's sucking on Eames' pubic hair through his split fly, eyes watching Eames' every facial tic at the feeling.

"Can I--" Arthur asks breathlessly, lifting up for a second. Long enough for Eames to swear, fish his half-hard cock out of his fly.

He cups Arthur by the nape, guides him back down. 

And oh, _Arthur_. Arthur's lips are so _pretty_ like that.

"D-darling," Eames stammers, feeling torn open.

Arthur's eyes close in bliss, head bobbing.

 

 

He brings Arthur tea in bed--cup clattering on a saucer--and a condom and a little bottle of olive oil. Arthur makes a face but takes the tea, sets it down by the side of the bed and then takes the olive oil, smears up his own fingers.

Eames feels all too warm and fragile in his skin as Arthur makes a show of it, of opening himself.

"Come on," he says throatily and Eames settles all heavy and out of breath between his legs. They both fumble with the condom.

"So gorgeous, Arthur," he whines as he sinks in, feeling all affectionate as fingers scrabble and tear at his shoulders. 

He fucks these low, strangled sounds right out of Arthur. They're both sweat-slick by the time he comes, shaking it out, hips punching into that tight little ass, again and again. God he loves it already.

He goes down on him again after, licking his sweat off Arthur's gaspy chest, his nipples. He barely gets his mouth on him in time to catch Arthur's pleasure.

 

 

Arthur drinks his cold tea before Eames tumbles him again. After, he's a shadow of himself, come-weak and done in. Arthur rolls his eyes as Eames falls heavily against him. They curl together for a while, sleeping like kittens. When Arthur wakes, Eames swallows and touches the back of his own neck, whispers in the dark "would you like to meet her?"

 

 

"She's um...she's a bit--" Eames fusses, wiping his shirt sleeve hastily over her gearbox before he pops her open. He makes a face at the mess there, the obvious amateur work he's done on her over the year. But Arthur just leans against him, sighing, and runs his fingertips over a few gears, getting to know her.

Eames opens the latch to the walkway and Arthur pushes up on his toes, peers up at the light as it takes its graceful sweep.

"She's beautiful, Eames," Arthur says, voice full of emotion. 

Eames gets a little choked up, scrubs at his face. "Well."

Arthur turns and takes his face in hand, kisses him.

"Beautiful," Arthur says again, face blushed.

 

 

It's bloody humid on Tuesday, so his teeshirt gets all sweat-slicked to his back while he bikes across the island.

Arthur doesn't seem to have any qualms with that, makes a growly sound as he nibbles at Eames' pinked throat, hands running over him everywhere. 

Arthur leaves his work in his little kitchen garden and there's some doubt if they're going to make it up to the light before Arthur takes him to bed, but then Arthur pushes away, makes a frustrated sound, and pets down his hair.

They make out on the way up her spiral stairs, Eames popping off his mouth once to say "are these padded?" feeling with his feet before Arthur snarls and drags his mouth back to his.

He dry-humps Arthur against her gearbox, hand spread out on the smooth wood to prop himself up.

When Arthur pulls away, he's out of breath and tousled, cheeks ruddy. "H-here's my lady," he says, sweeping his arm around in the cramped space, introducing Eames to the Great Head.

"Yeah, I--" Eames starts but Arthur is climbing him, hands scrabbling, mouth sucking on Eames' bottom lip.

He comes in his pants, fingers dug deeply into Eames' shoulder and nape, face all lost and glazed over. Eames is right behind him, his eyes all full of the Great Headlight and Arthur's parted mouth while he slips into the white-out of pleasure.

They catch their breath. 

 

 

"Lynn wants us over for brunch tomorrow," Arthur tells his bare shoulder.

Eames groans.

Arthur's bed is decadently big, enough space for Eames to manuever easily when he puts Arthur under him. 

"Yusuf asked if we wanted to stowaway to the Cape for a few days."

Arthur's breath catches as he thinks about it.

"Lynn can lord it over us any day, love," Eames says, kissing down his throat and Arthur sighs, nods. 

"Mmmmm," Eames moans as he settles inside him, cock thick and hard for him. "You want to, then?"

"Yeah," Arthur says tightly, eyes clenching shut. He hugs Eames close.

They make love til the lamp turns on, her soft, white glow lighting up the room while Eames moves.

 

 


End file.
